There is an old saying in American politics: “If you want a friend in Washington, get yourself a dog.” Canada’s problem with U.S. President Donald Trump is clear: there isn’t a Canadian breed that would stay with him.
No one knows at this point whether or not Trump will go ahead with his punitive tariffs on Canada (and Mexico), thus risking a continent-wide trade war. But one thing is certain: Canada is no longer a special case in Washington, and the mutually beneficial relationship between Canada and the United States is almost dead.
True, Trump does not speak for all Americans, and not even for all of the politicos in Washington, but his Republican congressional supporters appear to have essentially given him carte blanche to do whatever seems to please him, and many malleable Democrats are largely following suit.
The people of the United States chose Trump, and Canadians must respect their decision. But it bears reminding in these difficult times that Canada and the U.S. began to grow together as far back as the 1850s, when Canada (or more accurately, British North America) gave up pounds, shillings and pence for a decimal currency, and later decided to adopt the same railway gauge as the Americans.
Even then, Canadian entrepreneurs and politicians knew that prosperity for Canada lay in penetrating the growing market in the United States. From then until the adoption of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (the latest version of NAFTA) in 2018, the economies of Canada and the United States have grown together. The symbolism of the change of name from the Canadian Pacific Railway to Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. is more than apt.
This economic integration adds to a strong military and security relationship that dates back as far as the First World War, when both countries fought and defeated the German Empire. And this was only the beginning.
For the next hundred years, we fought side by side. When Hitler’s minions threatened to overrun half the world, our two countries collaborated closely in the defence of North America, the Battle of the Atlantic and the liberation of western Europe. When North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, Canadian and American troops fought literally side by side against the Communist aggressors.
Canada stayed out of the unpopular war in Vietnam and the American invasion of Iraq, but helped smuggle American diplomats out of Tehran during the hostage crisis of 1979. Canada also sent troops to Afghanistan after the al-Qaida attacks against the U.S. on 9/11. Some 40,000 Canadians deployed to Afghanistan over a 12-year period and 158 were killed in active duty.
But who cares about the ties that once bound our two nations together? The question now is: how do we prepare for an uncertain future with Trump, and the years after he is gone?
First, it is time we put our own economic house together. In the last 10 years especially, we have been complacent, not doing our utmost to develop our boundless mineral, agricultural and human potential. We have always built our wealth on primary resources, from the time of the fur trade, through the square timber trade, to mining, farming and energy.
We simply cannot be sidetracked by worshipping fuzzy numbers regarding how much carbon we put into the atmosphere. We are far from the worst country in this regard, and we have to rebuild our wealth before we can look at these issues seriously once again.
And we have to take our sovereignty challenges seriously. From Arctic defence and security to securing our border with the United States, we must act. That will take a lot of cash and redirecting money from social programs to defence and security.
We do not know at this point if we will soon be entangled with the United States in a trade war. But we do know this: our trust has been broken. We must accept that bald truth and proceed from here.
National Post
Prof. David J. Bercuson is a senior fellow at the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy and director emeritus of the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.